Buy it... if you desire every last, fleeting piece of John Williams
majesty from the most memorable time in his career, a score of
individual melodramatic highlights without a cohesive personality.

Avoid it... if you would be surprised to hear Williams collect a
score's components in haste and apply three completely unrelated themes
to a terrible film that could have used a dose of the composer's knack
for capturing the true spirit of a tale.

EDITORIAL REVIEW

FILMTRACKS TRAFFIC RANK: #1,663

WRITTEN
8/12/09

BUY IT

Williams

Monsignor: (John Williams) A project destined for
failure, Monsignor was a 1982 adaptation of a 1975 French novel
about a corrupt priest at the Vatican whose dealings in love and
organized crime force the religious hierarchy to intervene. While such
an outrageous view of the Vatican, shot almost entirely in Rome, seemed
like an idea ripe for box office-spurring controversy, Monsignor
suffered so many ills in its production that it was generally mocked and
has since been long forgotten. The most prominent detriment to the film
was the insertion of actor Christopher Reeve into the role of the
priest, his attempt to shake the Superman label never successful
throughout the 1980's and early 1990's. Reducing itself to the level of
an average crime story completely incapable of competing with similar
themes as the Godfather franchise, Monsignor could not
muster enough genuine dramatic gravity to make audiences care about a
priest who already had some significantly alienating personality flaws
to begin with. The project also revealed itself to be one of difficulty
for composer John Williams, who was otherwise in the midst of the most
successful period in his career. His commitments to the Boston Pops and
the challenging duo of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial and Return
of the Jedi afforded him only six weeks in the summer of 1982 to
write and record his score for Monsignor. Perhaps sensing the
disaster that awaited the film's final cut (which impressed Twentieth
Century Fox so little that the studio moved it from its prime December
release slot to an October dumping to clear it out of the system),
Williams scratched together a score that seems improvised by his
standards. A very short effort considering the extensive length of his
surrounding assignments, Monsignor would drop a significant
portion of Williams' music in conclusive post-production editing,
reducing its placement in the film to less than thirty minutes and
marginalizing its already suspect identity. This final usage of music
should have come as no surprise, for Williams' score is little more than
three hasty themes pasted together in an incongruent whole that has its
strong parts individually but understandably suffers as a whole. The
instrumentation is familiar to the early 1980's period of hits for
Williams, utilizing the services of the London Symphony Orchestra with
accent performances by harpsichord and trumpet. Also representative is
the style; every moment of Monsignor, despite structural
congruency problems, is distinctly saturated with the composer's general
sound. That should place it well above 1981's awkward Heartbeeps
for many Williams collectors.

Indeed, Monsignor is literally the sum of three
completely unrelated themes, switching between them when necessary for
obvious variations and never placing the ideas in any confrontational
stance with each other. The title theme is one of romantic tragedy,
rooted with Mediterranean sensibilities that fit the locale. Evolving
from a solo trumpet lamentation in "Theme from Monsignor" (the end
credits) and "Monsignor" (the opening title) to an uncertain harpsichord
capitulation in "Forgotten Vows" (a nude scene, of course), this theme
eventually flourishes with the full ensemble in "At the Forum." Despite
its lack of use in the picture, this cue is the score's highlight, not
only extending the theme's inherent melodramatic progressions to
excruciating full ensemble expressions, but also featuring two simply
gorgeous solo piano ramblings that carry over directly from E.T..
If only the remainder of the score exuded the same sense of passion,
then Monsignor could have been among Williams' most poignant.
Unfortunately, the rest of the score is occupied by a very obvious
original source-like piece and a borrowing of material from another
Williams work to simply fill space. The former is a Latin mass heard in
"Gloria" and reprised in strictly orchestral colors in "Santoni's
Compassion." While impressive (and an important piece without other
sound layers in the film), "Gloria" is perhaps a bit overrated in its
liturgical, pipe organ majesty. The final theme is one that Williams
borrowed from an unfinished concert work meant for the Boston Pops. The
"Esplanada Overture," known from his official 1983 concert debut of the
piece, is used as a flighty representation of carefree adventure in
Monsignor. Its lofty tone sounds completely out of place in this
score, from "Reunion in Sicily" to "The Meeting in Sicily," and it is
perhaps no surprise that this piece was only minimally heard in the
final version of the film. The boisterous personality of this piece
would have more in common with New England fishing expeditions or even
the universe of Harry Potter than the tale of Monsignor. Singular
cues include a restrained solo horn piece in "Audience with the Holy
Father" (as generic a Williams cue as possible) and "Appolini's
Decision," which concludes with the score's only suspenseful material of
metallic, dissonant tone. Overall, Monsignor has plenty of good
ingredients but no sense of cohesion. It truly does, therefore, sound
like a rush job by the maestro. The score was the last post-Star
Wars Williams score released on CD, with the heavily rearranged LP
contents pressed to that medium by Intrada Records in 2007. While not
deserving of its Razzie award nomination (unlike Heartbeeps), the
score is one to appreciate for its rousing individual highlights rather
than its effective whole. ***@Amazon.com: CD or
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Bias Check:

For John Williams reviews at Filmtracks, the average editorial rating is 3.76
(in 73 reviews)and the average viewer rating is 3.65
(in 345,605 votes). The maximum rating is 5 stars.